English

Detecting ends of residually finite groups in profinite completions

Group Theory 2015-06-05 v1

Abstract

Let \C\C be a variety of finite groups. We use profinite Bass--Serre theory to show that if u:HGu:H\hookrightarrow G is a map of finitely generated residually \C\C groups such that the induced map u^:H^G^\hat{u}:\hat{H}\rightarrow\hat{G} is a surjection of the pro-\C\C completions, and GG has more than one end, then HH has the same number of ends as GG. However if GG has one end the number of ends of HH may be larger; we observe cases where this occurs for \C\C the class of finite pp-groups. We produce a monomorphism of groups u:HGu:H\hookrightarrow G such that: either GG is hyperbolic but not residually finite; or u^:H^G^\hat{u}:\hat{H}\rightarrow\hat{G} is an isomorphism of profinite completions but HH has property (T) (and hence (FA)), but GG has neither. Either possibility would give new examples of pathological finitely generated groups.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1205.0271,
  title  = {Detecting ends of residually finite groups in profinite completions},
  author = {Owen Cotton-Barratt},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1205.0271},
  year   = {2015}
}